The proactive component of organizational behavior: A measure and correlates

Abstract

This study investigated a personal disposition toward proactive behavior, defined as the relatively stable tendency to effect environmental change. We developed an initial scale to assess the construct and administered it to a sample of 282 undergraduates. Factor analysis led to a revised, unidimensional scale with sound psychometric properties. A second sample of 130 undergraduate students was used to determine the relationships between the proactive scale and the 'Big Five' personality domains: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. In a third sample of 148 MBA students, we assessed the proactive scale's relationships with three personality traits and three criterion measures. Consistent with hypotheses, scores on the proactive scale correlated with need for achievement, need for dominance, and independent measures of the nature of subjects' extracurricular and civic activities, the nature of their major personal achievements, and peer nominations of transformational leaders. We discuss the potential of the proactive construct to enhance our understanding of, and ability to predict, a wide range of behaviors.The authors thank Ben Rosen and Robert Vecchio for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript.

The Importance of Job Autonomy, Cognitive Ability, and Job-Related Skill for Predicting Role Breadth and Job Performance.

“…A smaller body of research has investigated the importance of other predictors such as leadership (Hofmann et al, 2003;Smith, Organ, & Near, 1983) and various personality characteristics (Bateman & Crant, 1993;LePine & Van Dyne, 2001). Yet there are other potentially important factors that have received little attention.…”

Exploring Proactive Market Strategies : Managing the Market to Create Value

“…Therefore, one of the first conceptual developments I made was a synthesis of the two main streams of research into proactiveness as a behavior: organizational behavior (e.g. Bateman & Crant, 1993;Frese et al, 1996) and market orientation (e.g. Narver et al, 2004;Atuahene-Gima et al, 2005).…”

“…From an organizational behavior perspective, proactive behavior is a type of highly motivated behavior exhibited by persons at work (Bateman & Crant, 1993). The highly influential stream of literature studying proactive personality in an organizational context was introduced by Bateman and Crant (1993, p. 103), who in their seminal paper define proactive behavior as "the relatively stable tendency to effect environmental change".…”

“…However, when delving more deeply into what it means in a market-strategy context, 'proactive' becomes a lot more interesting than jargon such as that deride by Scott Adams (1997) as "proactively leveraging synergies" in his highly popular Dilbert comic strips. Instead, proactiveness is primarily about three things: taking the initiative, creating change for the better, and thinking creatively (Bateman & Crant, 1993;Crant, 2000;Grant & Ashford, 2008).…”

Defining the Entrepreneurial Capital Construct

“…Proactiveness in firms is characterized by intentional change, that is, by force, acting on information to make change, not merely anticipating it (Bateman & Crant, 1993). This alleviates the risk of complacency by ensuring that firms are better placed to serve markets in the short term and shape them in the longer term.…”